Is it worth it to invest in a lightroom program?
I'm interested in shooting in the RAW mode on my Nikon D50 now that I'm finally getting a good lens. Can you tell me… What are the advantages of shooting in RAW? In programs such as Adobe Lightroom(and any other programs for RAW pictures), what kind of editing is done in them? Is it worth it to invest in these, is there a noticeable difference in quality of the images and how they turn out?
Anything you can tell me would be appreciated.
I use lightroom as the first stop, and often only stage, in processing my RAW images.
http://aviewfinderdarkly.com.au/2012/01/10/adobe-lightroom-3-introduction/
Using the RAW image allows grater latitude in setting the final exposure of the image.
Because JPEGs are compressed a lot of the image data is thrown away in the process, resulting a slight loss of quality if try to correct them later.
http://aviewfinderdarkly.com.au/2012/04/16/save-digital-photos-as-raw-or-jpeg/
Like many people you are probably fundamentally misunderstanding what programs such as LightRoom do.
LightRoom makes you workflow easier, by applying a whole bunch of potential basic fixes, and management tasks to your RAW images in bulk as they are imported. Now that may sound pretty boring and dull, well that's because it is, but it's still very important!
Lets say that during a days' (or more often in my case nights') shooting I rattle off 100 photographs. When I upload them to my computer I can have all my copyright info, shoot tags, lens correction, white balance, tone, noise profile, etc automatically applied to the entire set. This is done in a non destructive manner such that if I need to go back I can change or even remove all of this info in which ever files I want. What really happens is that this information is stored alongside the original file, and the result is viewed in LightRoom, it's only really applied when you export the image(s) for printing or editing.
In all honesty I think every brand of DSLR comes with software that is capable of improving how your RAW images look out of the box. What LightRoom and similar do, is extend those abilities, and automate them, potentially saving you hours of work. Time is not only money, but manually applying basic fixes to large numbers of images is repetitive, boring, and prone to errors.
If you want to apply software effects, or pixel level edits to your photographs, then LightRoom is not the program for you. In that case you'd be better off looking at (ordered by ability/complexity low to high): PhotoScape, GiMP, PhotoShop Elements 11, PaintShopPro X5 (avoid X4 like the plague), Photoshop CS5 or CS6.
As a foot note, for historical reasons (it's what I'm used to) I use Corel's AfterShot Pro, and PaintShop Pro, rather than the more common LightRoom and Photoshop combination. I'm not saying the Corel programs are any better, but I've grown up with them, and If I were to dig hard enough could proabably find a 0.x version of PaintShopPro on 720k floppy disk!
There's a huge difference when you shoot in RAW. Why don't you try working with the software that came with your camera for a while and then if you feel the need to step it up a little, get Lightroom. RAW files allow you to make the most out of your original file without deteriorating the image.
I would suggest investing in lightroom, about a year ago I had become interested in photography but I had only used photoshop, after I got my camera I made the investment and got lightroom and I couldn't be happier, it's a very easy program to use especially when it comes to high volume editing!
DO IT!